


It Took Several Regenerations

by MagicalStardust



Series: Doctor Who Oneshots [4]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 13 herself isn't in this I just thought tagging her would be wise, Angst, BUT lots of, Child Abuse, Gen, Medical Experimentation On a Child, Yikes, basically no gore because I hate gore, because seriously, cos this backstory is part of her season, ergo, so grab the tissues?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:35:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22989463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicalStardust/pseuds/MagicalStardust
Summary: “It took her years, several of the child’s regenerations,”Snapshots of the years the Timeless Child spent being understood by Tecteun.
Relationships: Tecteun (Doctor Who) & The Doctor (Doctor Who)
Series: Doctor Who Oneshots [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1192711
Comments: 15
Kudos: 81





	It Took Several Regenerations

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya! I hope you enjoy this (if enjoy is the right word). When the Master was like “took her years, several of the child’s regenerations,” I was like okay, that's horrible, gotta write this now. So, two days later, here it is...
> 
> If you're following me for my other stories, the next chapter of AQNL will be out tomorrow evening at the latest, promise I'm almost done! (Edit: oookaaaay I was very optimistic there, sorry)
> 
> 03/03/20

The little girl hummed almost inaudibly to herself, staring at the ceiling and deliberately not thinking about the needle currently sticking into her arm. This wasn't that bad after all, the tests were only a little bit uncomfortable and sometimes a tiny bit painful. And it was the least she could do to help Tecteun. The woman had selflessly taken her in after finding her next to the portal, when she'd been alone, and scared, with no memories and just a blank space that rang with static whenever she tried to recall what was through the portal, where she'd come from. She had been hungry and thirsty and she would have died, and then 'regenerated' (that was what Tecteun called it), and then died again (and then regenerated and then died again? - well, that was what they were trying to find out).

And not only had she been saved by Tecteun, she'd seen incredible things with her, they'd had the most amazing adventures together, exploring across the galaxy. Tecteun was one of the most brilliant (and one of the only) people she'd ever met.

It was just, sometimes, it seemed that her adoptive mother could be fascinated by the universe and all it contained but in a distant and clinical way, not in a way that was filled with wonder, in one that wanted to take it apart and analyse it, understand how it worked no matter what the consequences of this were. She was reminded of a time when they'd found a small, fluffy alien. It had been injured and had whined and cried out as the blood had seeped out of the gaping wound in its stomach. Tecteun had just watched, had ordered the child do the same, writing down observations and gripping the crying girl's wrist tightly so she wouldn't get involved and try to comfort the animal. Tecteun had grimaced as the child had sobbed all the way through the animal's dissection.

But that _wasn't_ what was happening here, so that didn't matter. Tecteun loved her, she had told her so many times, and her actions only proved that. She wasn't treating her like she had that animal. And besides, hadn't she been just as desperate to find out what was so special about her, about her gift?

Tecteun wanted to know what was so special about her, what made her tick, and that was okay, because the child was paying her back for taking care of her and she wanted to know too.

The child's eyes snapped open and she stared wildly around the room.

"Hey, hey, it's okay, my child," Tecteun said, stroking her hair with one hand. She looked up to see her mother scratching something hastily down.

Her mother seemed weird, a bit further away than usual. Her perspective seemed to be off. And though she didn't hurt anymore (that was nice), her arms and legs felt very different. She looked down at her hands. They were a pale, peachy colour. She looked down further and saw the dried blood on her now too large clothes.

"I regenerated again," she whispered, her breath catching in her throat. "You killed me!"

Her mother put down what she was working on and leant over to embrace her. The girl didn't know what to do. Whether to scream, to push away and struggle from the woman who had hurt her or to accept the comfort. Her thoughts were swirling round her head, too loudly. She settled for sobbing harder.

"Now then, there’s no need to be over-dramatic, I don't think I killed you did I?" her voice was sweet, but it had a harsh tinge to it that brokered no argument. "You can't really die, can you, you're just temporarily inconvenienced and then you're back, good as new. Isn't that fantastic? This increases the possibility that you are fully immortal! Now, I know that hurt a little, and I didn't mean for this to happen, but mistakes are always made in science and progress, and look what we've discovered. This can hardly be a mistake, can it?"

Several days later, eating a bowl of light soup (the only thing she could stomach after the morning tests) she reflected that it was strange. It was like she really did die, in a sense. Her personality was different, what she liked to eat was different, her mood was different, but something in the core of her being stayed the same. That and her memories told her that she was her. But she _had_ died.

The third her, the little blonde girl, had flinched and cried a lot. This boy was different, he was angry, and he struggled, there was a fire inside of him that was burning, burning, burning. It was a fire born of desperation and fear and anger (though he didn't have a right to be angry at Tecteun, not really, she loved him, she'd rescued him, she'd taken care of him, she was allowing him to be a part of the most revolutionary science anyone would ever see).

It was Tecteun's mission to detail every fragment of his genetic material. Even though he really wanted to help her, he really did, the tests hurt, they were exhausting, and he had nothing to do. It was rare that he was allowed to play with the children that he heard laughing outside everyday. He had to sit there, to be still, be quiet, not complain. Tecteun was nice enough to tell him about her work sometimes, but it wasn't enough, the rage bubbled beneath the surface.

One day it overflowed. Tecteun had poked and pinched and taken samples and he'd grown more and more restless. She'd promised him he could get up from the chair after she'd taken the blood samples. She hadn't let him.

"Let me go, you have to let me go outside, you promised!" he pleaded as she pushed him down again.

"That was before I hit a breakthrough with your blood," she muttered, reaching for the thin tool that would burrow into his ear and take a few cells from his brain. That was what had killed the last girl, Tecteun hadn't set it properly. "Science doesn't wait for boredom or childish games. Sit back down, I said!" she ordered and pushed him down harder.

He saw red. "No!" he screamed and shoved her with all the strength he could muster. The surprise of the action and the fury and desperation that gave it force caused Tecteun to loose her balance and she went tumbling down amongst her instruments.

Four didn't hesitate. He ran. He would run far away. He wouldn't let her catch him. He couldn't.

He sprinted and stumbled along the paths, the sharp stones cutting into his bare feet. He didn't care. He had to get away. Had to find a place to hide because it wouldn't take that long for Tecteun to get to her feet and he had a feeling that she was faster than him, could catch him, that those times Tecteun had raced his first self she had only lost to make the girl happy.

He burst into the first house he saw. He recognised it, one of his friends (well, One and Two's friends - he hadn't been allowed to play here after the second regeneration) lived here.

The family were sitting on cushions on the floor, playing a card game, and they looked at him in shock as he entered. One of the younger children recoiled and hid their face in their mother's robe.

"Please, you have to help me," he begged, tears streaming down his cheeks, though whether they were from fear or rage was impossible to tell. "She's hurting me, she won't stop testing me, I don't want this, I don't want to be part of science anymore. I don't want to go back, I don't want it to hurt."

He shook as he scanned the room for his friend. That could have been him, he thought, just no longer a child. But he didn't have time to say anything.

"You're Tecteun's... child?" the father asked, getting to his feet, his head tilted in askance.

The child nodded and as the father surged forwards opened his arms for the embrace.

It didn't come.

Instead the man grabbed his arm roughly and started dragging him to the door.

"Hey, stop, what are you doing! Get off me! Get off!"

"Shut up, freak," he hissed as he opened the door and shoved the boy outside.

"But you were kind to me... you... you liked me... you let me have sleepovers with G-"

The slap cut him off. 

"And I regret doing so," the father said, hauling him back down the path. "What you are is unnatural. Everyone says so."

The boy didn't go quietly, he kicked and bit and screamed and hit, lashing out like a ferocious animal, unyielding and snarling. But all too soon Tecteun came storming into view.

"You shouldn't have something like that out here, Tecteun," he man hissed as the child twisted and writhed in their grips. "You should take it back to where you found it."

"His body will revolutionise our understanding of everything.... Look, you're making this very difficult," Tecteun snapped as he fought desperately. She shook him. "I've done so much for you, I just want to understand how it all works. How could you be so ungrateful?"

The boy shrieked with everything his small lungs could muster as he was brought into the lab. He relaxed momentarily after they passed through it only to find himself shoved into the store room and the door locked behind him.

He hammered on the door and screamed and screamed and screamed. Rage tearing him apart.

"Let me out! Let me _out_!"

But his rage slowly exhausted itself and the fear took over again, his screams collapsed into sobs and he scratched hopelessly at the gaps around the door.

"Let me out," he whispered, his voice cracked and raw. "Let me out..."

No one came for two days.

The boy knew this because the room got darker and colder at night, but during the day it was moderately more bearable. Moderately.

When the door scraped open he flung himself at her feet, grasping at her legs deliriously and hanging on tightly. The furious part of his brain was pushed right to the back of his mind.

"Right, child," Tecteun said softly as she drew one of his shaking arms upwards. "We just need to get this in you and then we can put this all behind us."

He blacked out as a searing pain shot through his left arm.

When he came to Tecteun was carrying him in her arms. It felt deceptively safe there.

"Wha..."

"I just put something in your arm, dear," Tecteun said. "To make sure you don't run away again. I can't let you be selfish and ruin everything."

Four tried again, of course, and again. Before he had got even fifty paces from the house an unbearable pain from the chip in his arm made him black out. He understood then. He raged and destroyed Tecteun's lab while she slept.

He lay in the chair of the partly repaired lab with a fresh bruise blossoming down one side of his face.

Tecteun gave him two pills to swallow. He gritted his teeth but did so obediently.

"In your next regeneration you will be quiet and helpful, won't you?" she asked. "You won't cause trouble and you'll do as you're told so we can solve this together, won't you?"

The boy nodded stiffly, his vision was blurring and he felt that something was wrong with that sentence, he wasn't sure what though...

When he opened his eyes he immediately started scrabbling at his clothes, they were far too tight and where they hadn't ripped they were cutting into him.

"How are you feeling?" A voice asked to his left. It was Tecteun.

The last time he had seen her she had given him something, some pills. Had she? No. She wouldn't have, would she? Well... the child decided, if she had done he had deserved it, he had been fire and rage, determined too keep fighting, he hadn't been good and quiet, he hadn't helped to advance science.

"Clothes too tight?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Come on let's find you some, quickly, we need to finish a few more things here afterwards."

He trotted after her obediently.

He was a boy this time, he realised as he got dressed. He knew it because he had the thing between his legs. That was the only difference he could see so far between being a boy and being a girl. Being the first girl had been the best, he decided, she'd been the happiest, she'd had the most fun, she was the she of before.

He shook as he let her run more tests, but he bit his tongue and didn't say anything. And when he let her replant the tracker which his body had pushed out during the regeneration process silent tears ran down his cheeks, but he blacked out before he screamed.

The girl who came after him was desperate and feisty, but she lacked the blaze of the caged animal that Four had had. She inherited Five's penchant for hiding under beds and in small spaces, as if the dark shadows would save her from the needles.

She hadn't lasted long. Tecteun said she was sorry, but she was fairly certain she had cracked the secret of her immortality and needed to study the process of regeneration once more. She tried to fight, but Tecteun injected her with something before she had time to move properly.

When he woke up again he was a boy, a boy who didn't see the point anymore. He didn't struggle as Tecteun ran some last tests, he felt nothing as she took samples. Nothing mattered. Not him. Not the advancement of science, of Tecteun. Who cared about that anyway.

He watched slumped in the corner as Tecteun regenerated for the first time. He felt he should be feeling something, relief maybe, but he just couldn't.

After a time of gleeful experiments on herself (or was that himself now, the boy didn't know) Tecteun came over to where he was sitting and ran a hand through his hair affectionately.

"Is it over now?" he dared to ask, it would be nice if it were, it would be nice if everything would end.

"No my dear, it's only just beginning," Tecteun laughed lightly and he noticed that the manic tinge that had enveloped Tecteun towards the end of her first life was still there, still fighting to break though. "After all, I think there would be many grateful people here who would jump at the chance to live forever. We can't stop now, can we?"

Despite the haze of nothingness wrapped around him the boy shivered.

She escaped once, across the universe, as far as she could go.

She almost felt relief when they caught her and she overheard that the only way to keep her under control was to wipe her memory. At least she would be free of her whirling, strangling thoughts.

At least then she wouldn't have to remember what they did to her.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys liked that! Do let me know what you thought (I have a splitting headache so I'm not super sure whether or not this is any good)
> 
> If you want to find me on tumblr I'm stardustloki


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